Mary, Queen of Scots

Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542-8 February 1587) was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 to 24 July 1567, succeeding James V and preceding James VI. She was forced to abdicate the throne after an uprising, and she was executed in 1587 for plotting to murder Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Biography
Mary, Queen of Scots was born in Linlithgow, Scotland on 8 December 1542, the daughter of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise. Her father died of illness shortly after the Battle of Solway Moss, and Mary became the Queen of Scotland at just six days old. Scotland was ruled by Regent Arran while Mary was brought up in France, and she grew to personify the Auld Alliance. In 1558, she married the French Dauphin and future Francis II of France. Within a couple of years, however, she was widowed. She returned to Scotland in the midst of the Reformation, though she herself was Catholic. Her marriage in 1565 to the Catholic Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley sent out an unmistakeable signal to Scotland's Protestant nobility, provoking a rebellion that Darnley had difficulty in putting down. Their marriage had implications for England, too, given that both Mary and Darnley could make claims to Elizabeth I's English throne. Insecurity had been bred into the Tudors since Henry VII of England seized the crown and Elizabeth's own succession had not been without its controversial aspects.

Mary and Darnley also had their own difficulties with one another. The Queen distrusted her husband's ambitions, while Darnley resented his wife's friendship with the Italian-born court musician (subsequently her private secretary) David Rizzio. They did not have an adulterous affair, but Mary was closer to Rizzio than to her rough-and-ready husband or her Scottish lords. When Rizzio was murdered right in front of her at Holyrood Palace in 1566, she blamed Darnley, and she plotted his assassination with another noble, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. He murdered Darnley on her behalf, and he established a hold over thew Queen, compelling her to marry him before a fresh revolt by the Scottish lords saw her deposed and imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle, Fife.

Mary escaped to England but was imprisoned by Elizabeth for 18 years. Elizabeth was sympathetic to helping Mary regain her throne, but when it was proven that Mary had been involved in the Catholic Babington Plot against her in 1585, she ran out of patience and Mary was executed on 7 February 1587.